Rainy Day

It was still pouring when I woke up this morning. Ted had already gone over to the lodge to use their internet. I put in another movie and sewed until about noon when we went back over to the lodge. The weather hasn't been cooperating but we will stay a few more days so we will have a chance to kayak and see some of the sights we haven't yet seen.

Late afternoon, it cleared some so we took a drive up to Colter Bay. After taking a few photos we went to the visitors center where they have a great Indian arts collection by David Vernon. We walked down by the shore where the beach was small, rounded, colored rocks that moved under our feet and were hard to walk on. Jackson Lake was mostly calm and the clouds had lifted to almost the tops of the mountains. It is a beautiful area and we would like to paddle to all the islands out there.

Grand Teton Lodge Company Bus Still in Use

Colter Bay

Islands to Explore

We were hungry so went to the restaurant for pizza and beer. Despite the $42, it was one of the best pizzas and craft beer we have had in a long time.

Signal Mountain Road

It was a gray, overcast day so we decided to go to the lodge and work on out blog. We stayed until a little after noon and caught up on computer stuff. In the afternoon, I sewed and watched a movie while Ted read in the bedroom.

After dinner, it wasn't raining so we decided to take the five mile drive up signal mountain.  On our way up the narrow, winding mountain road, there were cars parked in the middle of the road with their doors open blocking the road. When they finally got back to their cars they said that they had seen the largest mule deer they had ever seen and were really excited about how big it was. On our way back down there were still cars there, again talking about the huge mule deer. I took one look and knew it was an elk. I wonder what stories they will have to tell when they show their photos to people.

At the top of the mountain, the parking lot faces the fields away from the Tetons and the lake. We stood there with our binoculars and could see over twenty-five elk down in the sagebrush fields. We could hear the sandhill cranes but weren't able to pick them out at that distance. It was still pretty overcast and when we stopped and walked to the Jackson Lake Overlook, it was like someone had taken the mountains away. They were totally obliterated by clouds. We got back to the motorhome about eight just in time for the rain to start and it rained pretty much all night.

Jenny Lake

After a late start, we packed a lunch and headed south stopping at several turnouts to view and learn about the incredible mountains we see to the west of us. Nine million years ago, the earth's crust broke into two rectangular blocks along the Teton fault, a forty mile long zone of weakness. Through sporadic movements, the western block hinged skyward to become the Teton Range, while the eastern block tilted downward to form the valley called Jackson Hole. The sandstone remnant atop Mt. Moran, 6,000 feet above the valley, once connected to a layer of the same sandstone now an estimated 24,000 feet below the valley floor, indicating that the valley dropped four times more than the mountains rose.

We stopped to view magnificent Mount Moran which supports five of the dozen glaciers in the park. On the front of the mountain is a long black column that formed long before the rise of the mountains when magma was forced upward through a large crack. Due to erosion on the mountain, this hundred fifty foot dike is now visible. In geologic time, these mountains are energetic teenagers of the Rocky Mountain chain, active, growing yet sculpted by erosion.

Black Dike Continues Down Beyond the Glacier on Mt Moran

The Cathedral of the Teton Group

Jenny Lake and Cascade Pass

We took the partially one-way road to String Lake where we met a couple launching their kayaks. They told us we could follow the narrow arm of the lake, do a short portage and get into Leigh Lake which is completely wilderness. Tomorrow, if the weather is good! We stopped by Jenny Lake to take some photos and then on to the Jenny Lake Visitors Center where we got out permits to kayak. We left the car there and hiked to Hidden Falls which is about a three mile hike. It was a beautiful hike often in site of the shore of Jenny Lake.

Great Stonework at Beginning of Trail

Rentals and Shuttle Boat

View From Trail

Trail along Jenny Lake

Along the way, we saw several groups of these large bags of rocks, some with large rocks, some with small, that must have been air-lifted in. We assume they will be used to upgrade the trails.

Big Bags of Airlifted Rocks

 We also saw an osprey chasing a bald eagle out over the lake. When the eagle came back to shore it lit in a tree almost directly over our heads. The osprey continued to taunt it and when it took off again, I saw it roll three hundred sixty degrees while it was flying straight ahead. That was something new for me. When the people we were watching with told a group coming up behind us what we had seen, he said he had never seen a bald eagle in the wild. That blows my mind as we have seen hundreds.

Bald Eagle

Just before we reached the falls, we found a bench in a clearing and ate a late lunch. There had been reports of bear on the trail earlier that day so we didn't want to stop where there weren't a lot of other people around. The falls were spectacular and worth the wait. 

Hidden Falls

   

Ted opted to do the climb to Inspiration Point. From the falls the trail rises two hundred vertical feet through a series of switchbacks. Part of the trail was cut into the side of the mountain with rough, slippery going on a narrow track. It was not the type of trail I would have been happy on. I sat beside the brook waiting, almost patiently, and saw an ermine run out onto the rocks in the water before turning back and disappearing into the woods.

Trail Up to Inspiration Point

419 Feet Above Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake and Jackson Hole Valley

Trail Down from Inspiration Point

Bridge Where Sheila Waited

Once Ted returned from on high, we took the mile long trail that returned to the boat dock and took the boat back across the lake. The nine dollars apiece was well worth it after not hiking for awhile. We returned to the campground tired but content after a beautiful day outdoor.

To Signal Mountain

We left Fishing Bridge mid-morning driving south to Grand Teton National Park. South of West Thumb, the road was narrow and winding but the good news was there wasn't much traffic.  We made a few quick stops along the way while we were still in Yellowstone.  One was at pretty Lewis Lake right beside the road. Just beyond the lake were Lewis Falls. There wasn't a place big enough for us to pull over but I managed to get a couple of decent photos from the motorhome. Just before the south entrance of Yellowstone, we stopped at another small falls where I took a picture of the motorhome and car, something I don't think I had ever done before.

Before reaching the Grand Tetons, the road travels through the J. D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. Rockefeller donated a lot of land to the Grand Teton National Park as well as contributing to many other parks around the country including Acadia National Park in Maine.  We stopped at the Flagg Ranch Visitors Center and got information from the rangers there on camping and kayaking.

On into Grand Teton, we followed beautiful Jackson Lake for quite awhile before the road veered away from the lake into sage brush covered flat fields. The incredible, jagged mountains to our west were almost indescribable and so different from what we have been seeing. The variety in this country never ceases to amaze me.

Early View of Tetons North End of Jackson Lake

We crossed Jackson Dam at the southeast edge of Jackson Lake. The Snake River feeds into the lake in the north and continues south of the dam. This is the same river we spent so much time following and staying beside in Idaho two summers ago.

We pulled into the Signal Mountain campground and were told that the length limit was thirty feet but if we could fit in a site, we could stay. We drove all the way around the campground and only found one site that looked even possible for us to stay in. After much finagling, we fit a third-five foot motorhome into a thirty foot site. Because the underneath back of the motorhome slants upward and the back tires are quite far forward of the rear end, we were able to hang over the log that is the end of the site. I thought we might not be able to put out the dinette slide but somehow we managed to get that and the other slides out with just enough room for the car as well. When we step off the step, we are in the bushes but it is a great location and we are glad to be here.

Tight Squeeze

We Need to Walk Through the Bushes to Get In

View From Lodge Next to Campground

We took it easy for awhile, Ted checking out where he could get an internet signal and me working on a sewing project. Ted took some photos across the water from the lodge. We went out early evening to Oxbow Bend Turnout where we were told we would probably see wildlife. While waiting and viewing we had a good time chatting with the people around us. There were people from France, Italy and another countries as well as people from all over the U.S. We saw three elk come out in the field across the water and saw three Sandhill Cranes on the other side of the bushes as well as heard the squawking of many more . A hawk was flying around and just after sunset we saw three beaver swimming in the river. The sunset behind the mountains was beautiful and for once I got some pretty good pictures of it.

When we left to return to the campground, we took a dirt side road that was marked as river access. We saw five white pelicans and a mule deer on this road. It was a fun night of animal watching.

Fishing Bridge to Northeast Entrance and Back

Today's quest was to find wildlife and we were extremely successful. Our destination was the northeast entrance of the park, the next to last major road that we had not traveled. To get there we drove up through the Hayden Valley to Canyon Village and then over Dunraven Pass to Tower-Roosevelt before turning northeast. The road east from Tower-Roosevelt goes through the Lamar Valley which is the winter feeding ground for bison and elk in the park.  It is a wide river valley with big rolling hills dotted with many erratic glacial rocks and few trees.

Lots of Erratics

It was only forty-six degrees when we left at a quarter to ten under bright blue skies.  The first thing we saw after turning north was a huge bison beside the road. On the way to the entrance we saw seven different herds of bison, over twenty-five single bison, seventeen pronghorn, a mama and lamb bighorn sheep, and four hawks, one of which might have been a golden eagle. We had not seen much animal activity since we had been here but today was the day.

Longhorn Sheep

Pronghorn

Once we reached the northeast entrance and turned around, we stopped counting.  We sat beside a bubbling brook for a picnic and then continued back through the valley.  We stopped to view the valley with binoculars and saw a couple dozen pronghorn and some really big birds that from looking at the bird book must have been sandhill cranes. We saw hundreds more bison on the way back and had to stop four times to wait for either one or many to cross the road. It was a really fun day.

Lamar Valley and Sandhill Cranes

Only 40 Bison in Yellowstone in 1880, Now There Are 2000

When we got back, I was trying to write the blog when Ted came in to say the people next to us had invited us over for happy hour. We sat and chatted with them a couple hours and then came in for a late dinner. Ann and Tom had borrowed their daughter's RV and were really enjoying getting away from the Villages in Florida for awhile.

Fishing Bridge to Cody, WY

The drive from Fishing Bridge to the East Entrance of Yellowstone and down into Cody, Wyoming is one of the prettiest stretches of road we have ever been on. We left about 9:30 in fifty degree weather, a heat wave for here. Our first stop was by Indian Pond which was beside Yellowstone Lake and so calm that we could see the reflections of the trees and clouds in the water.  There were two bison drinking from the far end of the pond with about a dozen people standing in the field not far from the bison. If you have never seen a bison up close, it is not an animal I would want to be standing next to with no where to run. They are BIG.

We followed the lake for quite awhile with the evidence of a more recent burn.  The standing trees still had black char marks and if there were any little trees sprouting yet, they were no more than a couple feet tall.  Once away from the lake, we started climbing towards Sylvan Pass with an elevation of 8530 feet. There were lots of pretty yellow wildflowers all along the way with purple asters mixed in.

At Sylvan Pass there are dramatic mountains all around with Avalanche Mountain beside the road. The mountain is well named as it is one large rock slide from the top to the road. They had one lane of traffic stopped so they could clear the rocks that had fallen in the ditches.

The Tiny Cabin Adds Perspective

On the other side of the pass was a deep ravine with steep drop offs and a really winding road. This area is all part of the Absaroka Mountains.  Once out of the park we were on the Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Highway and in the Shoshone National Forest. One of the first things we came to was Pahaska Tepee where Buffalo Bill's original 1904 hunting cabin is located surrounded by gift shop, general store and several other buildings. We stopped for a bathroom break and briefly browsed the shop.  There are several campgrounds east of Pahaska, all for hard-sided campers only. It appears that there are a lot of bears in the area and not safe for tents and pop-ups.  Nearby was the Sleeping Giant Ski Area with more bear warning signs.

Buffalo Bill Cody's Hunting Lodge

The rock formations in the Shoshone River Canyon were spectacular. We wanted to be taking photos at every corner. It reminded us of Bryce Canyon only with brown rock instead of red. We saw a mule deer and fawn between the road and the river as well as a memorial to firefighters who had perished in the Blackwater Creek Forest Fire. In the small town of Wapiti which means elk, there was a stack of elk antlers in someone's front yard at least twelve feet tall and eight feet in diameter. That's a lot of antlers.

Once we were in the valley, everything was named after Buffalo Bill Cody including the town.  We passed Buffalo Bill Ranch, Buffalo Bill Reservoir, Buffalo Bill State Park, Buffalo Bill Dam, Buffalo Bill Dam Visitors Center, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Buffalo Bill Restaurant, Motel, Hotel... You get the picture.  

We stopped at Buffalo Bill Dam Visitors Center. Built between 1905 and 1910, becoming the world's highest concrete arch dam. Below zero temperatures, floods, and highly dangerous conditions caused three contractors to go broke before it was done. Seven people died while building it while many others lost limbs or were severely injured. Unlike other dams we have visited, the water is rerouted downstream to the power plant so that there is almost no water just below the dam.

Our main purpose of going into Cody was to get my prescriptions filled at the Walmart there.  There are only a few Walmarts in the large State of Wyoming so we needed to get there while we could. It was only eighty miles one way! We ate at a Mexican Restaurant and headed back making one stop at Lake Butte Overlook on our way. The overlook is a little over six hundred feet above Yellowstone Lake and from there we could see the edge of the Tetons and miles and miles of lake and wilderness. I met a couple of friends there.

We Have Seen Many Ravens Out West